Sara put her hands together with a childish appealing motion. “Indeed, I do not know--indeed, dear godmamma, I do not know. If you think it wrong of me to have spoken to him, I am very sorry, but I can’t help it. I met him at Mrs. Langham’s, you know,--and he saw Sarah Mortimer written in her book. And the next morning he met me,--I mean I met him--we happened to meet in the street--and he told me he had found the clue he wanted, and was going to fetch some things he had put for safety in London--and I know he has not come back.” “How do you know he has not come back?” said I. Sara thought I was thinking of her, and the child blushed and looked uneasy; I observed as much, but I did not till long afterwards connect it with Mr. Luigi. I was too impatient to know about himself. “Because I should have seen him,” said Sara, faltering. It did not come into my head to inquire why she was so sure she would have seen him. My thoughts were occupied about my own business. I groaned in my heart over her words. Not yet was I to discover this mystery. Not yet was I to clear my mind of the burden which surely, surely, I could not long go on bearing. _It_ must come to an end, or me. CHAPTER IV. After what Sara had told me I felt in great doubt as to what I should do. Staying in Chester, even for a night, was against my habits, and might make people talk. Ellis, of course, would be very wise over it among the servants, and the chances were that it might alarm Sarah; but at the same time I could not return there in the same state of uncertainty. I could not meet her face again, and see her going on with her knitting in that dreadful inhuman way. Having once broken out of my patience, it seemed to me quite impossible to return to it. I felt as if I could only go and make a scene with Sarah, and demand to know what it was, and be met by some cruel cold denial that she understood anything about it, which would, of course,--feeling sure that she understood it all, but having no sure ground on which I could contradict her,--put me half out of my senses. On the whole, staying in Chester all night could do no harm. If Ellis talked about it, and pretended that he knew quite well what I had gone about, I dare say it was no more than he had done already, and would be very well inclined to do again. One must always pay the penalty for having faithful old servants, and, really, if my absence frightened Sarah, so much the better. She ought not to be allowed to go on placidly congratulating herself on having shut out this poor young man. If we were wronging him, what a cruel, cruel, miserable thing it was of Sarah to be glad of having balked him and driven him away! It is dreadful to say such things of one’s own only sister, but one does get driven out of patience. Think of all I had come through, and the dreadful doubt hanging over me! I had kept very quiet for a long time and said nothing to nobody; but now that I had broken out, I fear I